"Looks like some chemical that has some corrosive effects on biomatter, perhaps an alien chemical-imbued melee weapon"

It couldn't simply be a regular alchemized sword doing this: if it was, in fact, an alchemized sword doing this, it needed to carry some sort of alien contaminant during the alchemical process, Janick thought, knowing that poisonous alchemized swords tended to bleed without giving a semblance of anything remotely resembling cauterization upon contact with blood. Or at least not without using some sort of alien toxin that may have been native to the homeworld of the attackers. She was realizing as much upon gently hovering the hand over a cut on the corpse without actually touching it. Hopefully Jada Raxis may be on to some psychometric detail that she would find by performing it on something other than what Janick did it to. Another object that was present in the Temple when the attack was underway. If only Janick could get some sample of the toxin today, perhaps she could keep some in reserve for future alchemical products, for further analysis or maybe both. But it was not the time to collect such items just yet. Not when the real threat may come into range soon enough.

It also seemed that the static was sending a message of its own, and not simply interfering with sensors and comms. And, somehow, a handful of orbs of light, each of which representing some of the wingmen that were killed in combat operations she flew with, appeared in front of her. Of those people whose callsigns she knew, and their faces, too, but their names she didn't because she spent so little time with them outside of flying: Nanami, Muntz, killed on Utapau against the Mandos, to name those whose faces actually showed up on the orbs, as well as a few others killed on Dagobah she never had a reason to actually know about their names even though they were hangar personnel onboard the Compellor. Others around her, such as Dax Fyre, Kaia Starchaser, Zak Amroth seemed to have similar experiences of orbs containing the faces of dead people they met in person during their lifetimes even though, unlike them, Janick was not onboard the Seeker. And she also had different conversations with the dead compared to Griet: the latter would have conversations of a financial nature instead, rather than of a military nature.

"It is long overdue but your deaths were not in vain, not immediately after death at least" she told the ghosts of Muntz and Nanami, before turning to the next set of ghosts. "As for you, your deaths bought the Alliance perhaps a few days or so"

To insinuate that I was there because I drank too much of this azeotropic goodness I called the Asobi 95% tihaar, might have meant that the tihaar was part of the malfunction's cause; Tamana cast the spell when I was drinking that stuff, she thought, while Veino Garn told her the basic situation: the outpost was hit. True, it wasn't as showy as the First Order may have been, but perhaps there were some Sith Assassins involved, in which case they'd have no incentive to use ysalamirs. She could always try to track the traces aerodynamic drag left behind in the Force when someone was walking, but she knew that sort of thing was faint at best, and she could try to lock on to that sort of signature for spellcasting, much like one would lock on to a magnetic signature of a ship equipped with a cloaking device. Or perhaps the magnetic signature of a lightsaber, generated by the blade, or some other energy weapon, in that case she would be casting Force-lightning, chained or not. But Eliza Steele, Narayan the Unslaver or Kaia Starchaser would potentially have other methods to find and fight the enemy as Janick disembarked.

"Be on the lookout for potential traps, Force-based or not. It's too quiet for my own comfort" Janick added to Mynock Dubrillion, while keeping an eye open in the Force for those magnetic signatures belonging to energy weapons, such as blasters, lightsabers and so on, so forth, standing ready to cast Force-lightning if their owners were hostile.

Janick was not simply a witch; she was a guest lecturer on the two topics she contributed most to its scholarship for today. Yes, she was an alchemist that did alchemize electronics, but her contributions to alchemy were not as important as those she made on Memory Rub and Drain Knowledge. Last time I was a guest lecturer on those topics, I manned a booth with a sign saying "Fresh infusions of knowledge" and it was one of the few times where I infused knowledge other than knowledge of the Force, but it was also the time where my mental bandwidth was spread among several people at once, she thought, while recalling upon her knowledge of what caused Memory Rub and Drain Knowledge to be more or less effective, and when, as well as any knowledge of neurobiology as was relevant to the topic at hand, especially on the topic of memory encoding and storage, knowledge she was led to think few active practitioners of Memory Rub or Drain Knowledge actually had in the past; she had to give an allowance for the possibility that some mental data transfer practitioner lost to history could have known about neurobiology.

"Today, although some of you may have heard about me and how I can proceed to use Memory Rub for infusing knowledge, or alternatively, to use Drain Knowledge to download it from someone else without causing undue pain. The fundamental inequality of mental data transfer deals with how fast you can infuse into, alter, erase or download knowledge from someone else without intentionally causing pain: you should not perform these operations any faster than the slower of these two speeds: your own mental bandwidth or the mental bandwidth of the target"

"Suppose my mental bandwidth is faster than the source's. Why would I cause pain if I, say, download faster than the source's bandwidth?" a student asked.

"Information overload is the primary cause of pain here; you'll then cause pain proportionally to the excess of downstream speed over the source's mental bandwidth. For the rest, I'll infuse the knowledge into all of you simultaneously. You may ask any questions only after the infusion is over"

What did I do to land myself here? I hope I can manage without the repulsor-broom, Janick thought, while Veino's voice awoke her; perhaps it was an attempt by someone else in the Circle at using a spell that went awry that led her onboard. Here she would be, armed with her lightsaber as a sidearm; she had the Force for her ranged battle needs. She could also feel that other responders, such as Eliza Steele, Kaia Starchaser, Mynock Dubrillion and, of course, Griet van Vliet (for airborne cover, but she had some clear memories of the accountant helping her out of a tight spot on Shusugaunt), were making their approach towards a planet they all called Binaros. For now, anyway, the witch was alone, without her apprentice and without the others from the Circle. Hopefully there would be some ranged weapon as a hand-me-down from a fallen enemy or some such thing. Or so she would hope, especially since the possibility was very real that there would be some ysalamir or void stone somewhere out there. They all seemed to be responding to some distress signal...

"It seems that I'm here because some spell went awry; what's going on here?" Janick asked, while yawning at the end of the question.

Direct hit! she thought, while the concentrated fire was enough to cause a hull breach to the ghost ship. Because of the hull breach, Kaia Starchaser and perhaps Zak Amroth preparing to board now that there was a hull breach through which either could board. But then again, she couldn't board; someone had to keep watch over their exfil craft while they were boarding the Seeker, and that was to be her. As for Dax Fyre, he also wanted in, but Janick was the odd girl out. Not that she feels left out per se, she had good reason not to. But the Seeker seemed to be awfully slow to respond to the boarding, or the attack that preceded it: she had enough time to get out of point-defense range and, for the ghost ship's crew, firing a concussion missile at her in a stern chase would make it dead-stick before it hits even if she didn't attempt evasive maneuvers. Even they knew apparently that the effective range of using guided missiles for point-defense depended on relative direction of the launcher to the target: the effective range is longest if fired head-on, and shortest in a stern chase.

The Seeker was, well, much bigger than even the Azalea, but there was no standing off that thing. Not when one's craft only had guns and a bomblet generator; it would mean dive-bombing to fire the bomblet generator. Ugh... dive-bombing, even at a speed faster than what I could get out of an Alakaha, makes me feel that attacking the Seeker will be like Dagobah all over again, Janick thought, while her memory played tricks with her. And yet, Zak Amroth somehow began to fire a quad-laser of all things at a ship larger than a flak frigate (then again it was entirely possible that it was the only weapon Zak's ship had, in which case it had to be within PD range to fire), narrowly missing it due to the EWAR jamming in effect. Feeling that Zak unduly compromised her position by laying down some fire, and Kaia Starchaser dropped a shadowbomb, it was time for her to go full throttle and dive-bomb that thing anyhow. From a different angle of course, and pulling up once the bomblet is away at high speed. Between the shadow bomb and the full-power plasma bomblet, she had to pull out of point-defense range and fast. And evasive maneuvers were key to her here to save her bacon.

Weapons lock would normally imply that something has been fired or at least readiness to fire, Janick thought, knowing that it took time for even targeting computers to acquire targets. All it meant to Janick was that, if the Seeker was hostile, they were not ready to fire anything at anyone. With the green mist somehow concealing cronau radiation, she may be led to think that perhaps she should collect some of that mist - if she was able to in the first place. Because even fighters like the Shusugaunt Ghost were typically not equipped for that sort of operation; all she could do then was to initiate a scan of the ghost ship. Now that the scan could begin, she had to make sure that she would not be perceived as hostile by the Seeker; as such, she maintained safe distance, and stayed out of point-defense range, while still approaching it somewhat. With Zak Amroth and Dax Fyre also en route to Kharlon, it would be easy for the crew onboard the Seeker to perceive that it has fallen into an ambush if they are not careful. So it was only a question of time until it attacked in her mind.

"All stations, report in. No sightings near Ruby Dear. Any luck over by Lamia or Kharlon?" Dax Fyre reported in, with the static having faded at the same time the elusive ghost ship made its jump.

"Looks like we have rapidly fading cronau radiation readings over here, however, it seems to be fading too quickly for it to be an unjammed reversion. There has to be some sort of jamming, supernatural or not, at play here"

Static was still emanating from the direction of Zak Amroth and possibly even Kaia Starchaser or Kir Tillian, which could indicate that the ghost ship may have reverted on the path from Lamia to Kharlon, and only the relative strength of the jamming could tell the two possibilities apart. For some reason Janick is still convinced that what made the ghost ship, well, a ghost ship, was at least partially due to EWAR. Even though she would have to face the possibility that conventional EWAR's role was, in fact, not the end of the story, she'd still cling to that possibility, until she has a complete scan of that thing at least. Even then it's possible they'd shoot it down before they could even get a scan completed, especially if the occupants deem any of the ORC ships in this area, or any combination thereof, hostile. This kind of ghost ship can be a serious threat to the security of the ORC if it actually is hostile; however, I should not drop the bomblet until I'm fired at, Janick thought, while looking for anomalies that could help locate a ghost ship around Kharlon.

Janick decided to tag along with Rekha Kaarde, Peyton Steele and Dax Fyre, to whom she taught some of the more exotic Force-powers on top of mental data transfer. Such as Neural Storm and Memory Walk. Plus, from what she knew of the other ORC participants, she would feel that she was there for a specific reason: commerce, both in a pecuniary and in a knowledge sense. Because all the other major areas of interfaction relationships were already covered by the others. Dressed in her black dress and bracers, she would meet Riamah under different circumstances as was the case the first time they met each other, while being seated somewhere in the Azalea; surely Riamah would recognize her pretty readily. Now, there may be other attendees she never heard about before, such as Edward Thane: for this reason, she had to tread lightly and not to overstep her bounds. And yet, she decides not to put on her false light-side aura, even though she knew the other ORC attendees also had some light presence... Poodoo: I can't bank on any Force-users on the other side present not to recognize me otherwise; it's best to use the false light-side aura when meeting with arm's-length parties or for undercover missions among light-sided entities, she thought, while staying close to Dax.

Then its EWAR suite, presumably containing universal jammers, is truly universal in its jamming capabilities, so that it can even create sufficient background noise in cronau radiation to baffle cronau sensors, Janick thought, while realizing that perhaps there is some alchemical treatment applied to the jammers themselves; she would be led to think that some sort of thrust trace damper would allow it to confuse cronau radiation as well. However, she knew that most thrust trace dampers don't work so well when full thrust is applied. With Dax Fyre being headed for Ruby Dear and Faenula Triscan to Lamia, and Zak Amroth being somehow hidden by that same noise in her scopes, she decided to activate the stealth suite so as to fly to Kharlon undetected, should the ghost ship open fire at her upon detection. And yet, she knew that she couldn't apply maximum thrust when in stealth mode. Maybe she can fly about as fast as an A-wing, with or without tow cables, but that's still enough to catch the ghost ship with a full-power bomblet in a surprise attack if it came to that. And that gives her more ideas for her very own alchemical universal jammer, to be built upon return.

"All stations, it looks like our target has heavy ECM jamming" she answered Dax Fyre's question over comms. "All I can detect is some general area from where a lot of sensor static is coming, but no more than that; I'll try to close in but I'll stand ready to bug out if the target proves hostile"

Janick was apparently unconcerned with whether said ECM jamming would affect comms to people such as Kaia Starchaser, Zak Amroth or even @Endeavor that were also looking for the elusive ghost ship. She feels that her controls were shaking when she was dealing with an enemy about which nothing seemed to be known other than some general location and some presumed EWAR capabilities; for what she knew the target may as well be suicidal to attack outright, but she'd rather stay out of what she presumed to be point-defense range, knowing that the jammer's signature gets more intense the closer she gets to it. Plus, from the sensor signature of the jammer, she could tell the power of a jammer model; it was very similar to the EWAR equipment mounted on the GE's EWAR platforms as she faced them on Dagobah. Ouch. The GE may have left lots of wrecks behind on several theaters, Varonat, Dagobah, Tatooine, Charros, but did the Seeker travel to any of those? Janick thought, while the possibility that the EWAR could be GE in origin was perhaps a little too far-fetched to her taste.

Meanwhile, Janick flew her first starfighter sortie in months, especially since pilots typically fly less and less as they go up the ranks, and even more so for elite units. The reports were most disturbing: no amount of mental data transfer skill would help her out here, assuming these reports were correct. And even Force-based methods of detection seemed to be much more difficult to use than usual. There's too much Force-based interference out there; it's as if some sort of Force-ECM is active; speaking of which, I probably ought to make some device that can jam Force-sensory. Useful against BM, useful to remain undetected. It creates a lot of static but while the Force-noise would be centered on the device, it would be able to jam Force-communications and Force-sensors, she thought, while realizing that she would need to buy a few universal jammers to make it work. In effect, it amounts to a portable Force-nexus (or as close to one as feasible with a universal jammer) and she needs to activate the autopilot so that she can fully concentrate on using the Force for locating the object they all call the Seeker.

DESCRIPTION
The base blade of Mizu was forged using traditional Atrisian techniques, called Honsanmai, which involves folding the base blade over and over for removing impurities. A masterpiece of alchemy, this sword was crafted with some modification to Sith rituals, differing from many Sith Swords before it by not being able to ground lightning. It is resistant against lightsabers and deflect blaster shots. But its presence in the Force will warn any Force-user of its wielder's arrival and ruin any attempts of stealth. Finally, due to the use of part-Vong blood, the blade also contains poisonous properties.

Strengths:

Lightsaber-resistant: It can resist lightsabers.

Deflects blaster fire

Poisonous blade

Weaknesses:

Force-nullifiers: The presence of Force-nullifiers can render the blade nothing more than an ordinary katana.